It is plain, however, that this broad alluvial margin, extending from the northern edge of the heights, which are the substantial constituents of the Hoo peninsula, already existed, A.D. 779, at least a very large extent of it; for the first charter, so dated,[59] describes it as then “habentem quasi quinquaginta iugerum.” In a later charter, A.D. 789,[60] the name of the projecting level appears as “Scaga.”[61] It must already have become land of value to be granted in these charters; and its identity is certain from the limits--Yantlet (“Jaenlade”) water to “Bromgeheg,” now “Bromey,” on the higher land at Cooling. Does not the word “jugeru,” used in the charter, indicate that this “marsh” was already cultivated or pasture land? How it had been originally caused is, however, not hard to discern. It is, evidently, a large portion of the delta of the Thames, intercepted by the confluence of the other great river, the Medway, and thrown back behind the chalk promontory of the Hoo. Inside, and westward of this deposit, the tidal estuary makes a bold reach southward; sweeping the western side of this level, and approaching the heights, so as, at Cliffe, Higham, and Chalk, to leave only a comparatively narrow fringe of level; and it is on the heights at the southern bend of this reach, that are situated these three villages, which will presently be found, it is thought, to be interesting to us. As to the most substantial objection, which of course has continued to be a constantly recurring ingredient of this controversy, that the place of the synods must have been within the kingdom of Mercia, it seems a little oblique of the mark aimed at. They were royal councils, and these must be expected to have followed the presence of the king and his court, as was the case in much later times than those now under consideration. Most of the remaining records of these synods at Cloveshoe, and of the other national ones during the same period, show the king to have presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian King, who is so found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa; and throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in Kent. The policy of the Mercian aggressors, during their long continued contention for empire, to grasp the great estuaries of the island, has already been referred to, and a glance at sheets I. and VI. of the Ordinance survey will show how desirable was this Chersonesus for the head quarters of a power, which made a chief point of the possession of the Thames, and its only less valuable and smaller sister, the Medway. The opposite coast of the East Saxons had already, for several reigns, been subjected to Mercia. A.D. 704, Suebræd, the regulus of the East Saxons, could not grant lands at Twickenham, then in Essex, but “in prouincia quæ nuncupatur middelseaxan,” to Waldhere, Bishop of London, except “cum licentia Æthelredi regis” of Mercia.[62] Kent,